Why do we do better/improve when we are coached as opposed to doing it on our own? As humans we are limited in our potential (to do anything) without the help of other humans. It's a simple fact really. Plus, we perform better when we are given goals, expectations, challenges, and the tools and teaching to do better. I could have tried to lose this weight on my own and to change my eating and exercising habits on my own... after all... I'm a coach. But, I'm also a human being. I know from years of experience that if I humble myself and become coachable and accept that life is totally about learning and changing, I will succeed. Having others educate, coach, and support me through this has made all the difference. "This" being my education of healthier food choices, of new approaches to exercise, of how to deal with two households on opposite sides of the state, of living with an 87 year old, living with a two year old, teaching, coaching, everything. When we stop learning... we stop living.
Right now, I am mid-season. All coaches know what that means. DANGER ZONE! and TURNING/TELLING POINT. This is when it's easy to be happy with where we are and to become complacent with the things that we are still not doing well. This is when I need my coaches to push me more, not less. I need more menus, more challenges, more honest feedback, more information about food and exercise, and more stories to inspire me. My championship game happens the first of July and basically I have three months left to get this done. I started needing to lose 27 pounds and that may not seem like a lot, but I want to do it by changing the way I really eat and by not exercising in a way that I can't maintain right at home in my bedroom if I need to. I need a lifestyle change that fits me along with my new clothes. :D I hear about so many people who lose all this weight and months or years later they gain it all back plus some. That's why I'm taking it at a slow pace and doing it in a way that I can really live with. I don't think I've lost more than 2 pounds in any given week. But, I can honestly say, that I think and know a lot about what I eat. Rather than say, don't ever eat that again, I tell myself I can eat it if I want to. Most of the time though, I honestly don't want to. And if I have a piece of pie, or a brownie once in a while or even once a week, well then, I do. I'm not going to any extremes... just learning to build a life plan that works for me.
So how do I step up my game mid-season? Help me out here. I've been thinking about how I've helped some of my athletes mid-season. I had this player once who was averaging double digit figures on boards and points one year (her junior year) and some nights, she was producing 20+ points and most of those were not from the perimeter so they were very physcial shots. She was a beanpole. Then she had a bad mid-season game. Then another one on the road. Whenever we have long bus rides home, I have one-on-one seat conferences with each of my players. As we were talking I could tell that she was struggling. Instead of seeing all the positives leading up to the last two games, she only saw the last two games. She instantly thought she was backsliding. In dieting, we can do the same thing. So do we just throw it all in and say "I gained instead of losing again, so why bother. I can't do this?" I think people do exactly that. I saw that this player had been struggling over the past two weeks and had thought a great deal about how to help her. I had done some things offensively to take a little of the pressure off, but I needed her to get this team to the state championship again. Then I remembered...
I remembered my junior year in track. I had some struggles in life in general and I was distracted. I also had some younger girls threatening my position in some relays. I could fight back or surrender. I saw myself choosing "surrender" and I could have gone down that path and disappeared quietly into the background but my coach didn't let me. My coach challenged me more. Pushed me more. Rode my butt. Didn't give up on me (most importantly). I don't think that coach knows how important it was for me to be a part of something... anything that year in my life. We were on a bus to a desolate town and it was a two hour bus drive to get there. He told me that the only person that was quitting or stopping me from doing my best was me... because he KNEW I could do it. I believed him because he hadn't removed me from the relays. At the time I didn't know that my back would be so bad my senior year that I wouldn't be able to run at all; I just knew that I loved to run. I forgot everything else when I was out there running. It was a small insignificant meet with five or six other schools and cheap little medals. But it was a turning point for me.... a make or break. Long story short, I ran my best split in the 4x4 that I had ever ran and to this day, it's my best time. I ran it again in the open as well. I remember that race even 30+ years later almost meter by meter like it's in slow motion. We were in third place when they handed the baton off to me and it was odd, I just never felt tired, never hit the wall on the final turn, and didn't feel tired on the home stretch. I handed off the baton in first place... because someone else believed in me. So back to my player on the bus. I shared this story with her and I gave her that medal to keep for me. I wanted her to know that no matter what she thought I believed in her and always would. I hope she passes it on some day with her own story because I have a feeling she will be a coach one day. She went on to be a state player of the year and has many trophies and medals to remind her of her worth, but even champions need someone to believe in them and to push them through their tough times.
So, please keep pushing me even when it seems I'm going to make it. :D
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